Chris Arnade: Walking in Beijing
A great one today from Chris Arnade, about Walking in Beijing. I will quote a few paragraphs but there is much much more:
To someone who has been raised on horror stories written in foreign papers, there is a surprising anything-goes attitude in China, outside of a few institutions. The internet firewall is annoying, but everyone gets around it, and everyone knows everyone does. Very bad things do happen in China, but the overwhelming majority of people also go about their daily lives much like anyplace else, focusing on daily tasks, local gossip, sports, family matters, career advancement, love lost and love wanted, rather than the political maneuverings of the political class. The Chinese are chill, fun, and open—at least about as much as you can be when living in a city with the aesthetic of an overly engineered corporate business park.
There is, when you look closer, a great deal of chaos in Beijing, some of which is simply about incompetence or a lack of care from the vast array of minor officials and bureaucrats, but most of it is from the surprisingly optimistic attitude of the residents. China doesn’t feel like an oppressive police state the way the Soviet bloc once did, because the Chinese, rather than being corrupted by anger, are sincere, thoughtful, grateful, happy, warm, efficient, genuine, and caring. To the degree that they are cynical (an attitude that dominates most oppressive authoritarian states) there is a playfulness to it, not a bitterness. An “Oh, did you see what silly thing the party did again?” rather than a sense of living through an existential terror.
So far so good. But:
Simply put, it’s unclear what China’s ultimate goal is beyond accumulating wealth and expanding its cities—eventually stretching its metro system to the 98th expressway ring, then the 400th—until the entire country fuses into a single vast urban sprawl. What is the end game? What is the Chinese guardian class working toward? Anyone who still believes it’s the old Marxist vision of eliminating capitalism and creating a classless, stateless society is deluding themselves.
[…]
I’m currently writing this in Korea, and the contrast between Beijing and Seoul is fascinating, mostly in an unflattering way to Beijing. Despite what I wrote above, I am happy to be out of Beijing and in Seoul. It is refreshing to be able to quickly read whatever I want and talk to whomever I want without having to jump through all sorts of hoops, regardless of how ineffective and symbolic they are.
Some good photos there too. Seems to be a place that’s better for living in than visiting — the anti-New York.
Visiting San Francisco and just had my first Waymo ride. It was the most obedient, defensive, proper driving I have ever seen, at once frustrating and uplifting. The world would be a better place if every car was fully self-driving and I can’t wait for them to come to DC.
The one thing to read this weekend is this NYT interview with Rick Steves. His answer to “what you would do if you couldn’t travel any more” was pitch-perfect:
I would welcome the day, strangely, when I could not travel anymore, because it would open a gate of things that I’ve not done because of my love for travel.
Which is my feeling as well. You can love what you are doing and still be OK not doing it any more because, and this is Rick again, “[t]his world is such a beautiful place to experience, and there are dimensions of experiencing this world that I have yet to try.”
Mozi is a splendid idea for making serendipitous encounters happen. On the other hand, can you truly call these encounters serendipitous if they needed an app? (ᔥMatthew Haughey)
United Airlines IAD→SAN flight is full, the person in front of me is talking about sickle cell disease, and I know a good chunk of people on board. I should also be looking at the #ASH24 program instead of writing this but oh well.
For some light weekend reading, may I suggest this Chris Arnade quartet:
The inconsistencies in capitalization are entirely Arnade’s.
I am at ACR Convergence all weekend, but here are some quick shots:
There’s no space in Bangkok left untouched, no discarded patch of land underneath a tangle of elevated roadways, no plot too harsh and uninviting, that doesn’t have at least four or five vendors pitching something, be it food, motor parts, lottery tickets, keys made on order, outdoor tailors, and haircuts. No placid backdrop your eyes can rest on to give your senses and brain a break.
File this one under “paragraphs of note”. Chris Arnade at his best.
I’ve updated my now page. The update includes where I am right now, which is Savannah, Georgia, where I am attending a medical conference. But you can’t escape DC: I was sitting at the bar having lunch when a couple couldn’t help overhearing where I lived as I was chatting with the bartender. “Hey, we’re from DC too”. Small world! Where in DC? “Oh, we live downtown, we’re both lobbyists.”
Of course they were. One for a private healthcare equity firm, the other for medium-sized pharmaceutical. We did not delve deeper.
Fall mood.
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